Pricing the Ultimate Sacrifice

Time Editorial 1/26/05


With the military death toll mounting in Iraq, Congressional leaders are sheepishly conceding the need to raise the current $12,400 paid as a "death gratuity" - cash to cover immediate expenses - to the spouses and children of men and women killed in the course of service. Public awareness of such a token amount for the ultimate sacrifice has been quietly building, prompting Senate Republicans to vow to raise this one-time, tax-free payment to $100,000. This is more in line with some of the lump-sum payments to families of police officers, firefighters and other civilian responders who are killed on the job.
The pity is that this issue is being presented in the new Congress in partisan fashion. Democrats also favor the $100,000 proposal, and bipartisan support seems guaranteed, whether President Bush affords the larger payment in his coming budget or not. Each day, the war makes it painfully clear that it is the nation's responsibility to rise above politics in dealing fairly with the men and women sacrificing so much in Iraq. The higher payment would be retroactive to the war in Afghanistan; companion proposals would provide cost-free health insurance to the children of those killed in service.
The death gratuity is separate from the $250,000 in low-cost life insurance that the government makes available to military personnel. This benefit would be raised by $50,000. But it is scandalous that so far, Congress has not stopped the well-documented abuse of military personnel by unscrupulous financial peddlers given entree to bases where they fleece soldiers with overpriced, superfluous insurance plans. As the Iraq adventure shambles on, lawmakers better get to work fleshing out their rhetoric about the soldiers. Supporting the men and women in the military does not just mean making speeches.